Page 1 of Distress Signal

one

. . .

REAGAN

I pointed at my ass.“That belong to you?”

On the final night of our hiking trip, my twin sister, Lainey, and I wandered into the local dive bar, which happened to be the only bar in this entire county. She wanted to dance, and I wanted to drink something that wasn’t water.

Unfortunately, as I’d been on my way to the bar for another round, several guys had gotten handsy, and the latest offender now faced my ire.

What the fuck was it with men, anyway? Putting their hands—and other things—places they didn’t belong?

This whole trip had come to fruition because I’d caught my ex-boyfriend balls deep in another girl, and Lainey suggested we get the hell out of dodge. The timing couldn’t have worked out better, lining up perfectly with spring break, the final one of our college careers. While the bulk of our classmates headed south for warmer, more tropical locales, Lainey and I traveled north and west, ending up in southwestern Idaho in a place I’d never heard of.

Dusk Valley.

An idyllic name for, I had to admit, a damn charming little town.

Chuckling and shooting me a wink, the offending asshole said, “Not yet.”

Stepping forward until I was in his face—eye level, because we were the same goddamn height—batting my lashes like some doe-eyed school girl, I said sweetly, “You ever touch me again, andIwill own your dick after I break it off your body. Understood?”

“Oooooh,” his friends chorused, laughter bubbling out of both of them, but the man in question sneered. Red crept up from the collar of his worn flannel shirt, spreading to his cheeks. Beneath the brim of his hat, I was certain a vein pulsed in the center of his forehead.

“You bitch,” he hissed, some spittle landing on my cheek. “I ought to teach you a lesson about respect.”

I moved backward. Not because I was afraid of him, but out of sheer desperation to get away from the reek of beer on his breath. “Seems like you missed that lesson yourself.”

If such a thing were possible, steam would’ve come pouring out of his ears then, and he sputtered for something to say.

Satisfied with a job well done, I turned away, intent on continuing my journey to the bar, but I was once again pulled up short by something colliding with my back.

I knew how to take care of myself when it came to drunk men. In addition to the regular self-defense classes Lainey and I had started taking on a whim last fall, I’d put myself through college by waiting tables and bartending. But now fear gripped me, even as the self-preservation instincts that had been drilled into me rose to the surface. Coming after me with my back turned was a fucking coward’s move, and the only way to ensure I couldn’t mount a proper counterattack.

“I’m so sorry,” the person who bumped into me said when I faced them, and I realized it wasn’t the man who’d been hittingon me but a woman, the front of her shirt wet from a spilled drink.

“What happened?”

She waved a hand behind her, then accepted a stack of bar napkins from another woman who appeared at her side.

“Pissing contest between a couple guys.”

Shoving past me, she and her friend disappeared, and the scene unfolded before me.

A man—abigman, thick arms nearly covered with tattoos—had my offender slammed face-first onto a nearby table. Glasses and bottles went flying, shattered pieces skittering across the floor. People nearby fled in gasps of annoyance and shouts of alarm.

Mr. Tall and Tatted twisted the guy’s arm behind his back at an unnatural angle, and the man’s face contorted in pain. Then the big guy leaned in and said something too low for me to hear.

“I’m sorry!” the asshat shouted in anguish. “It’ll never happen again!”

The big man’s eyes lifted and scanned the crowd until they landed on me.

Damn, even from ten feet away, his bright blue irises were piercing, reminding me of the watering hole Lainey and I used to spend hot summer days in as kids. We were too poor to afford the community pool, but we had thebesttimes on those narrow shores.

“Say it to her,” the big guy told his captive, nodding in my direction.

“I’m sorry!” he groaned in my direction. “It won’t happen again!”